40 Days Till 40 (Day 29)

DANCE CALL

It is the first day in my birthday month, and already it has started off in an unusual way.  At 12:30 this morning I received a text from a friend of mine that said, “Hey you.  Come dance”.  I responded to the text, but with no actual intention of going, what with being in my pajamas and all.  Fifteen minutes later, another text with the location and the same plea to “come dance”. 

I responded, “We always get in trouble when we dance together.”  I promptly turned off the light and settled back into bed.  I had just fallen asleep when the phone rang at 1:30pm.  It was my friend.  Of course.

“What are you doing?” He was very chipper—and “four” beers in. 

Groggily, I answered, “What the f*ck do you think I’m doing?  I’m sleeping.”

“Come dance with me and my buddies!”

“Dude, I am in my PJs.”

“Get dressed.  Come dance.”

As I lay in bed in the dark with the phone in my hand, listening to him plead for me to come dancing I mentally flashed on that scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when Cameron is sitting in his car, sick as a dog, not wanting to go meet up with Ferris.  After an amusing conversation with himself, he realizes he’d better just go: “He’ll keep calling me.”  Yup, same thing happened with me. 

So I went.  Not, of course, without marveling (and bemoaning?) the fact that I had just been drunkenly, not booty called, but DANCE called. Oh yeah.

By the time I got to the bar, it was 2am.  The dance floor was filled with a predominantly Caucasian crowd dancing to one of rap’s greatest hits.  Awesome.  I looked around for my friend, but didn’t see him immediately due to too little light and too many people undulating on the postage stamp of a dance floor.  Then one of the dancers turned and made eye contact with me.  My friend.  He extricated himself from the two girls who were doing their damnedest to grind on him (Oh God was one of them TWERKING?!) and bounded over to me to give me a hug.

“Whaaaaaazzzzzzuuuuppppp?”

He dragged me over to the bar area and bought me a drink.  I accepted, grumpily thinking, “It’s the least he can do after dragging me out of bed.”  Man, am I getting grouchy in my old age or what?

We were not there for more than five minutes (barely into the pleasantries and how are you’s) when one of the grinders bounded up to him, clamoring to dominate the conversation.  “Ohmygawd!  What are you doing?”  Turns out she was one of his former co-workers—and that after seeing a post of his on Facebook, she decided to stalk him…I mean show up at the bar.  What I immediately noticed about this girl (old enough to be a woman, actually) was that she seemed very displeased by my presence.

I should probably take a moment here to give you a little backstory about my relationship with this particular male friend.  Although we have known each other for several years (and I, admittedly, have felt a connection with, even an attraction to, him), we have never dated.  One of us was always married, so our relationship has always just been friendship.  After my divorce, there might have been potential for an indiscretion, but we quickly ended that.  We flirt, we dance, we hang out.  Done. 

So back to our original story…

We returned to the dance floor and this girl would not leave him alone.  Every time I even moved an inch away from him she was there, trying to sidle in between us.  She was hell bent on winning her “prize”. 

After an hour and a half of this, I chose to slip away unnoticed, attempting to ignore the woman working to gyrate my friend into submission.  After spending the next half hour chatting with a buddy of my friend (who drunkenly waxed poetic on the objectification of women), when the succubus and my friend effusively claimed that they wanted to head to another club for more dancing, I went home. 

It turns out I am too old to jealously fight for the attention of a married man.  Good to know. 

Until tomorrow, Lovelies…